


the mending

by leilariddle



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-15
Updated: 2018-12-15
Packaged: 2019-09-18 15:11:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16997382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leilariddle/pseuds/leilariddle
Summary: Catelyn finds a six-year-old Jon Snow wounded in the godswood, and has to make some selfless decisions.





	the mending

**Author's Note:**

> This is what reading Jon's chapters in AGOT does to me. Comments are much appreciated to help me write!

One fine summer morning, Catelyn Stark was making her way through the godswood to find her husband. There had been a bird from Castle Black saying that his brother Benjen was coming down the kingsroad to discuss some matters concerning the Night's Watch. Catelyn, knowing that Ned did not like being disturbed during his time alone with the heart tree, thought best to give him the news herself instead of letting Maester Luwin come here. Although the place made her feel uneasy, it was a nice day indeed so Catelyn found herself actually enjoying the warm sunrays caressing her face and giving the deep green leaves a golden hue. Some marks on the trees were supposed to be her guide, and she was following almost absentmindedly when she heard the sound of a bird shaking up the branches in its haste to fly away. The sound had come from a few trees afar, but it hadn't been the only one. Just as Catelyn turned her head, she heard what was unmistakably the sobs of a young boy. She felt her heart twist inside her chest as the involuntary thought came to her head:  _Robb._

Catelyn had no time to think as her feet took her to the place from where the sound came, only to find an entirely different scene from what her mind had made up previously. There, sitting on the ground and sobbing uncontrollably was Jon Snow; at a first look the child seemed fine, but Catelyn quickly realized that there was a nasty scuff on his left ankle, and he was trying to ease the pain or stop the blood from coming out by putting pressure onto it with the torn up piece of cloth from his breeches. Catelyn should have felt bad for being relieved that it wasn't Robb in Jon's situation, but she didn't. There was no point in denying it. Still, something squeezed inside her chest for just a second at seeing Jon like that. She would later think it had been because of her mother's instinct, so she paid no mind to it and got closer. Her feet ruffling the fallen leaves got the bastard child's attention, and he looked up. His features changed almost instantly, giving away surprise for a second before settling into something akin to resigned fear. Catelyn realized she couldn't exactly blame him for that; the six-year-old boy knew he couldn't expect anything else from her but disdain, so he tried to cover up the problem. First, he hastily brushed away his tears with his little hands, but he couldn't help the sobs that made him sound like he had the hiccups. Jon lowered his eyes as Catelyn knelt before him, finding a particular leaf to stare at and trying to stay as still as the stone Kings of Winter down in the crypts.

"What happened here?" Catelyn asked, almost too sharply. She tried to grab his hand and swat it away to see the wound, but the boy was quicker and moved his leg farther away.

"I fell, my lady."

His voice was above a whisper, and trembling as well. She tried to pay it no mind, but it annoyed her all the same.

"From where did you fall? It was the tree, wasn't it?" Catelyn knew the answer of it all too well; sometimes he and Robb would climb some of trees surrounding the great moat at Winterfell, but always under the watchful eye of an adult. She didn't allow Robb to go wandering alone to the godswood yet, so she didn't understand why Jon was out here at all.

He nodded timidly. "I was trying to see a bird more closely, my lady. See, it was a blue one and big, with soft yellow feathers. I tried climbing to the branch above me but I lost my footing and fell."

Catelyn sighed, and was ready to open her mouth to give him a good long scolding, but the words wouldn't come out. By then, Jon's sobs were just almost inaudible but he was restless, moving his leg this way and that, trying to find a position that didn't make his scuff burn. Catelyn felt that squeezing feeling inside her chest again, the very same one that she felt watching Robb laughing heartily or little Sansa playing with her dolls. 

And it was a feeling she could not endure this time.

She stood up from the ground, shaking the dirt and leaves off her blue satin dress and looked up at the cloudless sky. That's when she remembered the real reason  _she_ was at the godswood in the first place; Ned was here too, under his heart tree. It felt like a good idea to go find him and tell him to collect his bastard son and take him to the castle. She had no business here, honestly. But that thought only lasted but two seconds as Catelyn realized that Ned had already spent a lot of time in the godswood today and there were chances that he was on his way to the castle by now, or even there already. And screaming out for someone being so far away was not an option. So it was her and the bastard boy, then.

"Can you stand up?" she finally asked, trying to look for any sign that he could.

The boy only nodded and knelt on the floor, putting his whole weight behind his good leg to stand up and not brush the other one against the dried leaves. However, the problem didn't seem to be that, as Jon started limping his way out of the woods and his eyes were watery with unshed tears. Catelyn, only a few feet before him, stopped to watch him for a few seconds, struggling with every step.  _You're a grown woman, and this is a child who can barely walk._ She knew she was being petty, and although Catelyn knew she was never right about it, this felt just too wrong to let it pass.

"Wait," she called, all the sharpness gone from her tone. The boy did what she asked, but no more. That was when she walked to him again and knelt, "I will need to carry you back to Winterfell from here."

His brow furrowed. "My lady?"

Catelyn didn't pay attention to the question as she took both of Jon's hands and placed them on her shoulders and picked him up slowly. The boy was as skinny as a twig so the weight wasn't a problem, but nonetheless she felt him tense in her arms as she started walking back to the castle. Catelyn could well imagine what he was feeling about this queer situation they were stuck in, since she was trying too hard not to think about it as well. But after a while, Jon started to slowly relax his body. As they were nearing the castle, Catelyn made the decision to head for the postern gate, given there were few guards there and no chance of being seen by other people who might think of the sight as winter truly coming. Besides, it was one of the fastest ways to Maester Luwin's turret.

The sight of the turret's door was very welcome for her already sore arms, but Catelyn soon found that there was no one inside. She walked quickly to a nearby bench and deposited Jon carefully there, heading back out to the hall to see if there was someone coming. A serving girl who was carrying a stack of parchments stopped when she saw Catelyn, and the lady commanded her to find Maester Luwin immediately. But the girl could only offer her apologies and say that the maester was attending Lord Eddard, who had returned from the godswood, in an urgent matter. So now Catelyn was faced with a greater dilemma than before: the maester couldn't take care of the boy, and she couldn't leave him alone either. She looked at him thoughtfully, trying to make up her mind between those two options. Jon's grey eyes were still reddish and puffy from his previous crying, and he was trying to suppress his grimaces of pain to a minimum in the presence of Catelyn, whom he knew was staring.

She didn't know how much time it had passed, but suddenly Catelyn turned away and began looking through the maester's potions for something that may seem familiar. The liquids inside the little vials had all a different color, depending on what they could be used for, but in that moment Catelyn was thankful to Maester Luwin for his neat handwriting wrapped around the vials. She grabbed one that was specifically for minor wounds and which she also thought she recalled seeing at old Maester Kym's turret. Catelyn walked to where she had left Jon, sitting on the floor to match up to the boy's height; she slid a footstool closer so Jon could lay his leg onto it and he complied meekly enough when she told him to.

"Now, this is going to sting a little," said Catelyn, sounding not too unkind. 

She applied the salve to the boy's scuff and rubbed it gently with the tips of her fingers. He tried not to grasp, first at the coldness of it and then at the aforementioned stinging. Catelyn had to admit it, he took it better than she had expected. She somehow knew it would have been different with Robb; after all, Jon  _was_ quieter than her willful son. Only a few tears were threatening to spill out of Jon's grey eyes by the time they were done, but he brushed them away with his sleeves. There were a few seconds of awkwardness in which Catelyn thought about what to do next, but she came to realize that it would be prudent to wait for Maester Luwin to come back and tell her if she had done a good job. For now, Jon's confirmation that it did feel better should be enough.

Later that night, after Catelyn had told Ned the events of the day and they were preparing to go to bed, Maester Luwin came to visit them to their bedchamber to inform Ned about Jon's current status. The maester had found Catelyn and Jon in his turret and had taken a look at the bastard boy's wound, while the lady told him about the salve she had chosen to use. Fortunately, it had been a good call on her part, according to the maester. But now, him telling Ned that Jon had a mild fever, and although there was no cause for concern and Luwin argued that it may only be just weariness, Catelyn felt a pang of guilt inside her chest that made her feel dizzy. She told herself that she should trust the maester's words since he knows better than her about the matter. But only after Luwin took his leave and Ned made love to her passionately could Catelyn forget about it and give herself over to pleasure.

But if Catelyn had thought she had no reason to worry about her husband's bastard any longer, she was very wrong. She woke up in the middle of the night, listening to Ned's soft breathing, indicating he was deep asleep. Catelyn relieved herself inside her chamberpot, and when she was finished, sat in the bed, staring at the darkness ahead. She had been dreaming, and the images seemed to have burned themselves in the back of her mind. In her dream, she had found Jon Snow laying amidst the fallen leaves of the godswood, and he  _had_ fallen from a tree, if his lifeless and oddly twisted body was proof of it. A  _weirwood_  tree, with sad face and red eyes crying blood. And Catelyn had just turned back from the scene with a satisfied smile on her lips.

Catelyn was frightened, it would be a folly to deny it, but it was not that she could wake Ned up and tell him all about it. So she stood up from her bed and put on her nightgown; it was a cold night, and she told herself that she should  _absolutely not_ be doing this. But she had to see for herself, that her dream had not been real and little Jon Snow was tucked tight inside his bed, perhaps dreaming something not as frightful. It was not a long walk to Jon's bedchamber, so Catelyn was outside his door much before her liking. The well-oiled hinges did not betray her intrusion, and she stepped inside quiet as a mouse. The warmth of the hearth's bright fire was very welcome, for both of them she could see. Jon was asleep on his right side, and nothing seemed amiss to Catelyn except the little beads of sweat forming on the boy's brow due to his fever. She came closer, still staring at him, at the little bastard boy who looked so strikingly alike to her Ned. Beside the bed, there was a cool water basin and a fresh cloth, no doubt left there by the maester in case he would find Jon still feverish. Catelyn did not even think about it as she grabbed the cloth and dipped it into the basin, mindful of not making any noise, twisted it and put it to the boy's forehead. He only stirred softly but did not wake up, and Catelyn could only smile at that, turn around and walk away as quietly as she had come.

No one would ever know.


End file.
